Flying is rarely fun. Airlines charge ticket prices based on demand and what might cost you $50 one day could cost you $200 when you come back three weeks later ready to book. If the booking process isn’t torturing enough the flight itself can be. When someone arrives with a bag to get on a flight it is only natural to have that fear that the bag is too heavy or that you are bringing something that you shouldn’t. Here are the best stories we have found on the subject.
If you are making a series of connecting flights duty-free can be confusing. Your first flight is hours away so you go to the duty-free and buy a nice bottle of alcohol. Two flights later and the boarding team are telling you that you are not allowed to bring liquids onto a plane. Then why did they let you buy it? It can be frustrating. The story of one woman who bought an incredibly expensive bottle of cognac has now gone viral. She was told she couldn’t bring the bottle with her on the flight and so proceeded to drink the entire liter of cognac before trying to board. As you can expect after drinking that quantity she was in no fit state to fly and in the end, was not allowed to board. Sometimes it is better to say goodbye to the bottle rather than risk the entire flight. One woman had a much better idea with a bottle of vodka and chose to offer shots to everyone boarding and working on the flight instead (of course those working politely declined).
Crazier stories happen when it comes to baggage weight. It is difficult because some airlines give very little weight options with their flights. While some companies are quite lenient when it comes to weight others are incredibly strict. The story of one man who flew home from a holiday in Iceland is now famous. He must have bought a lot of souvenirs because his bag was so full that he wore eight layers of tops and ten layers of pants. It was at this moment that the world found out there is a limit to how much you are allowed to wear. The man was forced to change and pay the hefty fee.
If you do ever look at your airline policy you can see that there are usually loopholes. Most people are allowed one carry on bag, one laptop bag, one duty-free bag, and one coat. You can use this to your advantage to avoid ever paying fees.
Of course, sometimes it is not how much you are bringing but what. Exotic animals are usually banned from flights because they could upset the ecosystem of the country that you are traveling to. However, it does not stop people from trying to bring them. The record has to go to one man who was traveling from South America to the US and tried to bring 163 tropical fish and 22 eels with him. How he thought he could hide so much boggles the mind, of course, he was caught. In an even stranger story, one woman was traveling from Istanbul to Paris. She had gone to Turkey to adopt a child but the process was not entirely legal. She decided that she would hide the baby in her bag and actually managed to board the flight without the child being discovered. Unfortunately, it started to make some noise during the flight and she was found out.
From the stories we have heard, it does sound better to be upfront and honest about what you are trying to bring with you. While you may not be allowed some items it is better than the alternative of a hefty fine or a jail sentence.
